Peter Cammarano has repeatedly asserted his “independence” in the Hoboken mayoral race. He has called Dawn Zimmer the machine politician in the race. At the recent Hudson Reporter moderated debate, he criticized “Zimmer’s team for allegedly being part of a county political machine.”
Why is this important? Outside politicians frequently wield disproportionate pressure in Hoboken. The machines push a lot of development in Hobokenout of proportion with Hoboken’s six story architecture and roads. For instance the recent action on a NorthWest redevelopment area (north of 14th street). The council voted to move forward with looking at this area as a redevelopment zone in March. A vote Mr. Cammarano supported. The proposed development includes planned 40-80 story buildings. The developer, the Rockefeller Group, is so confident that they applied for state funds to clean up the site before the council vote. Union County political bosses are linked to the large developments, anticipated to block the Palisades, on the Western Edge. They are supporting Peter Cammarano.
So why are Mr. Cammarano’svotes aligned with machine politics and supported by machine politicians? Because Mr. Cammarano is part of the machine.
Peter started with the political machine. He works for the politically-connected firm of Genova, Burns and Vernoia as an associate attorney. There his political career has been guided by partner Angelo Genova. From here he was directed into Hoboken politics. According to the politicker website ”the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) put him on the ticket as part of [David] Roberts’s 2005 re-election campaign.”
Since then Mr. Cammarano has continued associations with political machines. During this Mayoral campaign he has had at least two fundraisers hosted by Newark establishment politicians. The fundraisers serve to funnel machine money to Mr. Cammarano. Various political interests are helping Mr. Cammarano in other ways too. This weekend saw two citywide mailers from the ‘Building America Commitee’ smearing his opponent. The cost for the citywide mailing roughly ten thousand dollars.
So Peter’s claims to ‘independence’ are a little less than honest.
